Savior
by TeaRoses
Summary: One night at the Lakeview Hotel, Maria's sleep is unpleasantly interrupted. MariaAngela. AU. Contains profanity, alcohol abuse, and references to past sexual abuse. First chapter originally written for 10lilies on LiveJournal.
1. Chapter 1

Silent Hill and its characters belong to Konami and Team Silent, not to me. No copyright infringement is intended or implied. 

Author's Notes: My characterization of Maria in this fic is very heavily influenced by the characterization of her in fishchick's very enjoyable stories. I actually really like Angela, by the way, after all she's been through, but I still think this is what she's like, especially as seen through Maria's eyes. And yet in the end I'm disturbed by the fact that this fic isn't as dark as what I usually write in this fandom. But it's still Silent Hill, so it isn't exactly sweetness and light and happy fluffy bunnies either.

Also, I'm aware that I moved a central game event to a different location, but... that's a small part of how it's AU?

Savior

The funny part was that she really only killed the creature for the hell of it.

Maria was spending her first night at the Lakeview Hotel, wrapped in two blankets against the cold, completely unsure what she was doing there or anywhere. She was waiting for someone she didn't know, who she was already certain she hated, but she was still waiting, and meanwhile she might as well get some sleep. The room was pretty nice except for smelling like a grayeyard, but Maria hadn't even looked around the place before she fell asleep. It probably wasn't safe here but it wasn't safe anywhere, and anyway she had the gun and had found bullets for it.

But then she heard been that goddamn noise, thumping and screaming. Maria probably should have been afraid, but there didn't seem to be much point. If the things she had seen and shot at in this town could kill her that easily she'd probably be dead by tomorrow anyway. Unless of course she was already dead, which was looking like a strong possibility.

So she just ran toward the noise and burst through a door with the gun drawn, shouting at whoever it was to shut the hell up. Despite the darkness in the strange round room she could see that it was a woman screaming, and some ugly fur-covered monster doing God knew what to her. Well, around here that wasn't much of a surprise.

Shooting the woman would have stopped the screaming, but then Maria might not have had enough bullets left for that thing, so she shot it instead. She did end up emptying the gun, and the thing still twitched until that woman ran up and kicked it in what seemed to be the head. She then covered her face with her hands and stood there rocking slightly, panting.

Maria grabbed her wrists, pushing her hands down and looking into her eyes. They were dark, and her lank black hair contrasted with her thin sickly-looking face.

"Keep it down, will you? People are trying to sleep. Well, me anyway."

The woman's eyes flickered to the dead monster. "You saved me from him."

"Yeah, lucky you," said Maria sarcastically as she turned to walk away.

But before she could move the woman grabbed for her arm, and Maria turned around in annoyance.

"My name is Angela," she said, looking up at Maria more than a little pathetically.

"Like I give a crap what your name is?"

"Can you help me?" Angela asked.

"Well if I had any more bullets I could put you out of your misery."

The woman actually looked frightened. "What do you know about me?"

"Well, I know you're miserable because you're in this town. And that kinky blind date of yours over there doesn't look like much fun."

Maria was almost out the door before the woman called out to her.

"Take me with you."

"Take you with me? Why would I do that? And where do you think I'm going, anyway? I'm stuck here just like you." Maria was actually surprised to find another human being in Silent Hill, though. Assuming Angela was human.

"Just like me?"

"Except I'm smarter and better looking." She stared at Angela's body as she said it.

Now the girl was behind her, clinging to her back.

"Get off me, you stupid bitch," Maria yelled.

"I know where there's liquor," said Angela into her ear.

She shrugged. "So do I. I have the key to Heaven's Night, and I doubt I'll live long enough to drink that place empty."

"Not all the way there. Right here."

"Show me then."

Two hours later Maria was sitting on a bed in Room 312, completely wasted, with an empty bottle beside her. They had moved out of the Venus Tears Bar after Angela had thrown up on the floor. Maria was too drunk to ditch her, and anyway the alcohol cut the insane look in her eyes a little. She kept asking Maria questions though.

"So you just woke up here?"

"Someone's coming for me or some shit like that," slurred Maria, leaning back against the headboard.

Angela sat next to her. "To save you?"

"I doubt it. Does this place look like Fairy Tale Central to you?"

"It used to be different here in Silent Hill," said Angela, staring at her feet.

"Better?"

"No, worse."

Maria looked around the room. "There's something worse than this?"

Angela began laughing so hysterically Maria thought she might have to slap her. It was a twisted laugh but it actually put a little life into her face.

"Why are you here?" Maria asked.

"You don't really care why I'm here."

"You're smarter than I thought," said Maria with a laugh of her own. "But why are you here?"

"I did something wrong."

"It couldn't have been wrong enough for you to deserve this." Maria didn't mean that to reassure her. She just meant it was true by default, but Angela looked grateful anyway.

"You're too much of a wimp to do anything that bad," said Maria an irritated tone.

Angela laughed again, still twisted, and gave Maria an intense and slightly insane stare as she moved closer to her on the bed.

"You know, the more I drink, the better you look," Maria muttered. "Though I'd probably end up with alcohol poisoning before you'd actually be pretty."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Angela.

"Oh, this, probably." Maria gave her a sloppy kiss on the mouth. She tasted of alcohol and her skin was cold, and she responded about as well as a headstone. But Maria still might have pushed it all further if she hadn't though Angela might throw up again.

Then she pulled away a little and looked at Angela's face and those damn weak eyes.

"Tomorrow I'm going looking for more bullets." She almost added something about shooting Angela, but she wasn't sure she meant it and meanwhile the girl had put her head down on Maria's thighs.

She sighed. "And I'm definitely not saving your ass again, so maybe I'd better find you a gun."


	2. Chapter 2

Warning: Contain references to sexual abuse, however no descriptions or scenes of that.

A.N. I got some comments on another site that I had made Maria too "mean" in the first chapter, which really made me think because they had a point. She didn't react to other characters quite the way I showed her reacting to Angela. However, I was already figuring that if they kept hanging out together she'd get used to Angela and lighten up a little, so I hope this is an improvement on her characterization.

"So, how long have you been here?" said Maria the next afternoon as they wandered the streets of Silent Hill. When she'd woken up that morning she'd had a pretty nasty hangover, but Angela had seemed fine, just looked a little pale. She had even brought Maria a cup of water and some canned fruit, and then tiptoed around while Maria lay in bed. By the time she felt human enough to get up, Maria had decided to take Angela out for a "walk" after all. She already knew that sometimes she could find stuff just lying around in this place, though often it would make her sorry. Looking for a gun or something else interesting for Angela made a certain amount of sense. As she'd already said, she couldn't keep rescuing the girl. Eventually Maria was going to have to leave Angela someplace and continue on her own.

"Well, I grew up in Silent Hill," said Angela.

That didn't answer Maria's real question, but maybe that was just as well, so she just listened as Angela continued.

"But we moved around a lot, to other places too sometimes. People didn't like living near us."

"Why not?"

"My dad yelled a lot."

"What was wrong with him?" Maria asked.

"I don't want to talk about it." Angela nearly yelled herself when she said it, and Maria backed away with her hands held up.

"Calm down, will you?"

The next thing they saw wasn't a gun though; it was a mannequin monster like the ones Maria had seen before, kicking its legs in their path. Maria shot it with a bored expression and it fell instantly. Angela ran at it and kicked it. She seemed surprisingly good at that.

"I wonder why they're made out of women's legs," Maria muttered to herself as she pulled Angela away from it.

"They are?" asked Angela.

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Maria.

"That's not what they look like to me, that's all."

"What do they look like to you, then?" But Angela already had her lips pressed together again.

On the next block they saw a dress shop, with a sign proclaiming "Weddings and Quinceañeras" and Angela pointed to it. "My aunt Beatriz used to work here. My mother's sister."

Maria wasn't sure she should ask, but in the end her curiosity got the better of her. "What happened to her?"

"She moved to Brahams and opened up her own shop there. "

That almost made Maria laugh, because she had expected something like "Armless gray monsters dissolved her with their spit," or "She was sucked into a giant glowing hole in the ground and never seen again."

"She wanted to take me with her, but my parents wouldn't let me go."

"Well, I guess they wanted you around, at least." Maria was about to add "unlike me," but that was a bit much. She'd technically invited Angela on this little jaunt, after all.

"What exactly happened to the rest of your family?" Maria continued. This was another dangerous topic; she certainly didn't know what the hell happened to her own family and in fact her head hurt when she tried to think about it. But Angela didn't answer anyway; she just headed down a side street into a residential area. Maria, not surprisingly, couldn't think of anything better to do but follow her.

Angela walked right up to a door of a small house and tried to open it. "The lock is broken," said Maria as she caught up, but then she watched as Angela took a key from her pocket and opened the door.

"What is this place?" Maria asked, though she had pretty much figured that out. When they entered she could tell there had been a fire, the couch especially was a mess and a wall looked halfway burnt through.

"Are you sure it's safe in here?" Again there was no answer.

Maria looked at the carpet and saw a half burnt piece of pink paper. When she picked it up, it looked like a Valentine's Day card.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY ANGELA. LOVE, DADDY.

Another piece of paper lay next to it, white and heart-shaped.

I'M SORRY DADDY. I LOVE YOU. YOUR LITTLE GIRL.

That was an odd sentiment for a Valentine's Day card, but it looked kind of sweet. It must be pretty old though, if Angela had really been a little girl when she wrote it. How long ago had her family lived here?

Then Maria realized there was a dark stain in the carpet by her feet. Blood? Well, that wasn't exactly unusual here. It probably came out of the damn faucets. Angela was staring at her as she held the card.

"You gave this to your dad? I guess you had a very loving family, even if he was a loud kind of guy?" she ventured.

Angela laughed a very bitter laugh that went on way too long. "Oh yes. Daddy loved me. He told me all the time. And he wouldn't stop telling me. And my mother wouldn't stop him either."

Maria dropped the card and stared at her. "Oh hell."

"Yeah. Hell."

"Is that why your Aunt Beatriz wanted to take you to Brahams?"

"Tía Beatriz didn't know everything, or she'd have called the police. She just thought my dad was angry all the time. But I couldn't tell her… and I couldn't leave my mother here alone with my dad." The crazy look was almost out of Angela's eyes as she spoke.

"But your mother didn't even—"

"My mother is dead now. I tried to leave then but it didn't help. Anyway, in the end, there was no one to protect me but me. Isn't it always like that?" Angela moved away into another room.

"Is your father dead too?" Maria asked.

Angela didn't answer from the other room, and Maria stared at the stain on the floor and thought. Eventually she moved over to the couch, and poked at the cushions. Underneath one of them was a roll of half burnt money. Maria hesitated, and then stuffed it into her shirt. It wasn't like she'd have a chance to go shopping, but then again it wasn't like anyone cared if she stole something. She'd tell Angela later, probably.

When she came back in, Angela held a knife covered in rusty stains.

"What's that for?" asked Maria. She was halfway confident that Angela didn't want to hurt her, and very confident that a gun beat a knife just about every time.

"Isn't it always like that?" Angela repeated.

Maria stared at the knife and the bloodstain and finally the penny dropped. "Your father is dead too, isn't he?"

"My father? Did I say something to you about my father? I'm sure my father isn't dead. I didn't do anything wrong." Her eyes were glazed over now, and Maria knew she wouldn't get a coherent answer. Maybe that was too much to expect from anyone she was going to run into here. And she wasn't done meeting people in this place; she'd been warned.

"I guess that took some nerve, actually," Maria said, kicking at the carpet.

"What did? I said I didn't do anything wrong." Angela looked like a little child there, standing with a knife that should be taken away. But Maria wasn't going to do that unless she had to.

"I… he shouldn't have… you had to…" Oh hell, there were no words to say about this, even in a place that wasn't its own nightmare already.

"Let's go," said Angela.

Maria wasn't sure what the girl was thinking of right now, but she followed her out the door. Getting Angela her own gun might not be such a great idea after all, not when she was acting like this. But now Maria felt like her original plan to ditch her somewhere to fend for herself wasn't right either.


	3. Chapter 3

That night they didn't go back to the Lakeview Hotel. They were both tired and it was too far to travel, so they ended up in an abandoned motel, in the only room that opened. Angela didn't want to take her own room and Maria didn't feel like forcing her to. But she wrapped herself in her own blanket and stayed on her own side of the king-sized bed. She didn't want to touch Angela, for the girl's own sake. Maria had kissed her at the Lakeview but after what she had found out she figured Angela must need personal space more than anyone ever had. Angela's eyes looked a little lost, peeking out from the blanket on her side, but Maria couldn't help that.

_Don't get attached to her_, Maria told herself. _In this place who knows what will happen_.

In the morning when she opened her eyes to see the pale sunlight streaking across Angela's face she considered sneaking out, wondered how far she would get before Angela figured it out and tried to follow her. But she changed her mind before the girl opened her eyes.

Eventually they found a store with canned food in the window. Maria hefted a rock to throw and Angela grabbed her arm. "What if there's an alarm?"

"Who would answer an alarm in this place?" Maria asked. But after mentally answering her own question she put the rock down.

On another street they found a restaurant with an unlocked door and ate crackers and dried apricots. Maria didn't actually feel hungry, and she wondered if Angela did, but it was easier to eat than to think about that. Angela made a mess of her food, compulsively breaking it up into tiny pieces and jumping whenever Maria moved.

"It's OK," Maria told her, managing to keep annoyance out of her voice. "I'm not going to take it away."

"I need to go to the cemetery today," Angela said when they were finished.

Maria stared. "You're just a bundle of laughs, aren't you?"

"I need to find my mother's grave."

Maria didn't ask why she didn't already know. She wasn't sure what Angela remembered about her family today, and she didn't want to see that crazy look in her eyes.

When they got there, fog was rolling in from wherever it came from in Silent Hill and the place was so shadowed it looked like evening rather than morning.

"I think we're breaking some kind of rule," said Maria.

"What rule?"

"The 'don't go poking around in the spooky deserted graveyard in the evil town' rule."

"Do you think there's anything worse in there than there isn't out here?" Angela asked.

"Why wouldn't there be?" Maria answered. But just to show Angela she wasn't scared, she drew her gun and pushed the gate open. There was enough light to see the headstones, just barely. Angela grabbed her hand and pulled her along.

"What was your mother's name?" Maria asked.

"Alma Orosco," said Angela. "But she would have wanted her full name on a headstone, like she would have used in Mexico. Alma Benitez Guerrero de Orosco."

After an hour of looking they hadn't found any Orosco headstones. But they hadn't found any horrific creatures either, and Maria was about to feel relatively thankful when she suddenly doubled over in a coughing fit. She was still staring at the ground waiting for another spasm when she felt Angela's arm around her shoulders.

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah," said Maria, straight up carefully. "I'm fine. Anyway, what would we do about it if I'm not fine?"

As she wondered where the "we" had come from, Angela said, "There was a hospital on the way."

"There's nobody there," said Maria.

"I know, but there must be medicine."

Maria considered for a moment. "I don't know; it's not like I can just take some random medicine and get rid of this cough."

Finally she agreed with Angela that it was better than nothing and they headed back in the direction of the hospital. Maria hesitated again when they stood in front of the doors.

"Is there a spooky abandoned hospital rule?" asked Angela.

Maria opened the doors, wondering if Angela had actually made a joke just then. But she didn't have time to think much before something in a nurse's uniform ran at them, grabbing Maria by the neck before she could react. She was losing oxygen rapidly as she stared into the thing's bandaged and non-existent face.

"I should have known," she thought to herself as she reached wildly for the gun. Then the thing fell, and Angela stood there with blood dripping from the knife.

"I had to do it," she said weakly.

Maria put a hand on her arm. "Yeah, you did. Don't freak out, OK?"

"If the police come, tell them I had to."

"Are... the police after you, Angela?"

The girl shook her head. "They came after my father... died. And I told them everything and then I went to live in a hospital for a while. When I got out, I came here."

So she wasn't in trouble with the law, apparently, just with... her own conscience? Whatever ruled Silent Hill? Who knew, really. Maria didn't know what she herself had done to deserve this either.

Angela cast her eyes back toward the body. "Did it used to be a nurse?" she asked.

"It looks like a nurse to you too?" Maria asked.

She nodded. "Nurses killed my mother. I mean, real nurses. She went into hospital and they didn't take care of her. That's what my father said."

"Was it this hospital?" Maria asked.

"I don't know. He wouldn't let us visit her."

"We should go," said Maria. "There might be more of them."

"There are monsters wherever we go," Angela said. "And you're still sick."

As if proving her point, Maria started coughing again, this time so hard that she wound up sitting on the floor, weak and dizzy. Angela pulled her up by the hand and into a small room with a bed. "Lie down," she said. "I'll go get something for you."

Maria felt sick enough not to protest, and lay down in the bed. She thought she might fall asleep, but the coughing and the memory of the nurse monster kept her awake. After some time Angela came back and knocked on the door, presenting Maria with several bottles of pills.

"I found the pharmacy. This one is for coughing, and this one is an antibiotic, and this is for pain. And these are vitamins. They can't hurt."

"Oh well, might as well take them all," said Maria. She dumped a handful of pills into her hand and swallowed them dry.

"Maybe I can get sleep now," she muttered.

"All right," said Angela, heading for the door.

"Where are you going?" asked Maria.

"I'm not sure. To look for my mother."

"It's getting late," said Maria. "You could stay here." She edged over on the bed. "I don't think I'm contagious. Though how would I know?"

Angela, her face showing relief, locked the door from the inside and got into the bed beside her. This bed was much too small for Maria to get far away from her, so she just curled around her. Angela's hair smelled nice, though neither of them had been big on personal hygiene here, and she was warm.

As she closed her eyes and finally began to sleep, she heard Angela say "You're welcome."

"Yeah," replied Maria. "Thanks."

The next morning she woke up alone.


End file.
